DeMint Fighting Earmarks
Fresh off the tea party’s show of election might, GOP Sen. Jim DeMint said Tuesday he’ll force a showdown next week with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other old guard Republicans over “earmarked” pet projects that DeMint and other victors last week made a symbol of out-of-control deficit spending.
The South Carolina Republican, buoyed by support from six GOP freshman, is optimistic he’ll win a change in internal GOP rules to effectively bar any Republican from seeking earmarks.
“Americans want Congress to shut down the earmark favor factory, and next week I believe House and Senate Republicans will unite to stop pork barrel spending,” DeMint said.
DeMint won backing from 25 Senate Republicans, including McConnell, earlier this year to impose an earmark ban on Republicans and Democrats alike. Despite winning the support of a majority of Republicans, the proposal was easily defeated by Democrats and 14 pro-earmark Republicans. Thirty-three of 41 Senate Republicans then sought earmarks in this year’s unfinished roster of spending bills.
The Senate GOP ought to fillibuster any bill that contains any earmarks. Who cares if the GOP doesn’t have earmarks, you know the Dem’s will, so fillibuster any bill that has an earmark. That will eliminate the problem.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 0041 hrs
Dan, it is obvious that even those who backed the bill last time must have known it would go down, cause they went right out after that to get their own servings of pork, so their backing was as cheap as the backing of the chickens who would not pass the bill to audit the fed. Talk is cheap in Washington. Maybe they have all been losing their cahoonas by keeping their legs closed and surfing the web on their laptops
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 0110 hrs
Here is another example of the spineless nature of government officials from a very patriotic and conservative website.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/damn-right-bush-boasts-about-waterboarding.html
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 0113 hrs
That Congress spends so much of its time unsuccessfully concerning itself with these drops in the bucket doesn’t bode well for it ever making real decisions about our nation’s finances, does it? I’ll gladly give them all the bridges and museums in the world in exchange for tackling our nation’s real financial problems.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on November 10, 2010 at 0231 hrs
#4 - I disagree. Earmarks are an iceburg. The $$$ is the visible portion above the surface. The purchased vote is the bigger portion of the problem….
Posted by Smeety on November 10, 2010 at 0543 hrs
Tackling earmarks is fine, but for real control of the budget, entitlements (all of them) must be reformed. Depending on who you talk to, this is 50%-or-so of the budget. Then (and I hate saying this) we need to look at military spending. What is the REAL need and go from there.
Posted by Deekaman on November 10, 2010 at 0548 hrs
It seems like the blogging will have to continue a bit longer!
Posted by canvas art on November 10, 2010 at 0726 hrs
As far as military and VA spending goes. If they just address the waste and pork in those areas, It would reflect in the millions. Every little department has it’s pork barrel. If you just consider the bonuses for upper management at VA, and social structure perks in the military. The tip of that iceberg just starts to come into view.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 1039 hrs
Everything needs to be on the table for cuts. Earmarks are the epitome of what is wrong with Washington.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 1103 hrs
I believe what is wrong with Washington is for the most part our fault. We have been puting the same leakers back in office.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 1507 hrs
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a small step.”
I’m tired of the talking heads saying “its only 100 million your talking about” or something similar. Every little bit helps.
They are right that the big spending also has to be tackled. SS, Medicare, Medicade, and defense are the big pieces of the pie that need to be reduced for us to come close to balancing the budget.
Personally, I think DoD should be the easier one to reduce. We have over 700 bases in over 100 countries around the world. A large chunk of those bases can be shut down without affecting our national defense. Do we really still need to be defending Okinawa? They did a audit of domestic bases, time to do a audit of foreign bases.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 1631 hrs
Earmarks are a start. They cannot tackle everything at once—these problems did not happen overnight and it will take some time to fix them.
However, the McConnell, Boehner, et al view of “business as usual” with an R behind it is way off the mark.
:zzdeadhorse:
Posted by hsgbdmama on November 10, 2010 at 1654 hrs
:deadhorse:
(You changed the name of the smiley—thanks for bringing it back!
)Posted by hsgbdmama on November 10, 2010 at 1657 hrs
I agree with the purchased vote theory of the earmark problem. Eliminate the earmarks and you eliminate not only the spending on the earmark but also the purchased interest in voting for additional unrelated spending. At that point perhaps congress will have a serious look at non-earmark spending.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 10, 2010 at 1705 hrs
#14 - With corporations free to pour unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns, it is somewhat disingenuous to assume that the politicians who benefited from these donations would somehow bite the hands that fed them. Earmarks, and corporate tax breaks, are expected in return.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 11, 2010 at 0052 hrs
Politicians on both sides are basically nothing but the hacks of someone else, and they consistently vote against the expressed interests of the constituents that voted them in. This is not democracy and is definately not representative government if as a representative of the people the elected official refuses to do the will of the people. Much more of the democratic process needs to be wrangled back from the professionals and put back into the hands of the people. Many more issues should go to general referendum. This should be done especially on the local level, since the management of a one person one vote system in local politics is easier. We have every kind of communication and tracking devide of the modern world and still cannot seem to get the vote of the people? This is crazy.
On larger regional issues then something has to be done in de-consolidation of media. Because now too much of the media is in the hands of too few people. This does not make for an informed populace but an indoctrinated one. Campaign finance that excludes ALL outside funding makes sense, but the corporations and unions are now persons under the law…..hmmm…maybe only actual people should have political status as persons.There is still the issue of minority oppression by the majority, and history says that even majorities that start out benevolent can go bad (the churches in Germany before and during Hitler’s rise to power come to mind), so protection against oppression must be written into laws.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 11, 2010 at 1018 hrs
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